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November 13, 2012

Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy: Review

I bet Simon Van Booy writes fantastic love letters. I’ll never know but I figure reading Love Begins in Winter is as close as I’m going to get to it.

Love Begins in Winter is a collection of five stories about love, not always romantic love. The title story is of a cellist and an stranger he meets in a park. Both are damaged by terrible incidents that happened in their childhood. This actually wasn’t my favorite. I thought the lady might turn out to be like Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. She was a bit off.

My favorite story is The Coming and Going of Strangers. On the surface it seems like a tale of a young gypsy boy’s infatuation with the new girl in the village, but it’s more than that. Mostly it’s about the love within his family: his mother and father’s romance, his uncle’s love for them all. I loved how the story of their lives intertwines with Walter’s trip to the girl’s house. There’s a twist at the end too.

The remaining three stories are just as lovely. Van Booy’s writing is something I just melt right into. He can turn a phase like no one’s business. Take this one:

“It was very cold outside, and each time George exhaled, he passed through a cloud of his own life.”

Whoa! A cloud of his own life. I never thought of it like that but I guess it is true.

There’s a little bit of sadness in every story. Love doesn’t solve all problems and sometimes people get in their own way. Sometimes they get their happily-ever-after, but even if they don’t there is the potential for it.

Love Begins in Winter is a perfect choice for anyone who is tired of the same old thing. Grab this book, a cozy blanket, and settle in for the night.

That sentence is lovely, and true when you think of it like that. I've read about this book before but never got to it. I'm intrigued given the season, and you're been mentioning enough that I feel I ought to look in the bookshop.

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